Second sourcing for STMicro‘s 28nm and 20nm FD-SOI technology with Globalfoundries

June 11, 2012 // Julien Happich

Globalfoundries has agreed to manufacture devices for ST using ST's proprietary Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FD-SOI) technology in both the 28nm and 20nm nodes.

The high-volume and timely availability of ST’s FD-SOI devices is essential in quenching the market’s appetite for smart phones and tablets that can handle all their stunning graphics, multimedia and high-speed broadband connectivity without sacrificing battery life.

Multimedia convergence applications require technologies capable of coupling high performance with exceptional energy efficiency. With shrinking geometries, conventional transistors are becoming unable to offer optimal performance without draining battery life or raising temperatures beyond safe limits; the solution is the adoption of fully depleted transistors, capable of combining high peak performance, low active power across all use cases (retaining good performance at reduced power supply), and low stand-by power.

ST’s planar FD-SOI technology constitutes a cost-effective solution, allowing the Company to offer fully depleted devices at the 28nm node, well in advance of others in the industry. ST has increased its FD-SOI sourcing capacity by complementing its internal manufacturing in Crolles, France with the industrial capacity of Globalfoundries. The 28nm FD-SOI generation, currently in the industrialization phase, is scheduled to be available for prototyping by July 2012 and the next node, the 20nm FD-SOI generation, is currently under development and is scheduled to be ready for prototyping by Q3 2013.

ST FD-SOI technology has already been selected by ST-Ericsson for its use in future mobile platforms, which will enable enhanced performance from the ST-Ericsson NovaThor platform with much less battery usage – as much as 35 percent lower power consumption at maximum performance.

ST plans to open access to its FD-SOI technology to Globalfoundries’ other customers, giving them the possibility to develop products with the most advanced technology available at both the 28nm and 20nm nodes.

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